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George Sherrill Disabled; Disability Thankfully Not Permanent

By Jeff Sullivan
<em>look at my baseball</em>
look at my baseball

If you're like me, you've watched the Seattle Mariners' bullpen in the early going and cringed a lot. Maybe you haven't actually cringed, but you've experienced moments that would justify a cringe. Steve Delabar's excuse is that he has the command of a pigeon. (A pigeon can't command anything to do anything.) Erasmo Ramirez's excuse is that he's just getting used to a big-boy locker. Hisashi Iwakuma's excuse is that he's dead in a bag. We didn't know what George Sherrill's excuse was. The line was that Sherrill was still shaking off spring training, since Sherrill is always lousy in spring training, but that didn't satisfy. What's actually going on?

Now we have an idea of what's been going on:

Sherrill missed a lot of time late last season with elbow inflammation. He's 34 years old, and most of the way to being 35 years old. He was delayed at the start of camp with a sore elbow, and the Mariners knew they needed to take care. Sherrill's going on the DL anyway. Considering that last season Sherrill struck out 32 lefties and walked only one of them, we figured something might have been wrong. This might be the thing that was wrong, and hopefully it gets resolved, although at Sherrill's age you never know.

Let's not worry about Sherrill's timetable for now. For now, let's welcome Charlie Furbush back to the team. Furbush is a guy who I think deserves a continued shot to start, but I guess he's looked at as a left-handed reliever, and now he's with the Mariners as a left-handed reliever. In a very limited four innings with Tacoma, he allowed a hit and two walks, with six strikeouts. Furbush is a big-league caliber pitcher, so it's good to see him back, even though I don't think he should be forced into this role, yet.

It'll be interesting to see who Eric Wedge trusts to be his primary lefty for the time being. Charlie Furbush is somewhat experienced, and Wedge remembers him from last season. Lucas Luetge is a Rule 5 pick. But Lucas Luetge was on the Mariners from the get-go and has had two good appearances so far. This is something for us to monitor in between monitoring things that are way more interesting and significant.

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